Nikkatsu Diamond Guys Volume 1 | Blu-ray Review

In celebration of Japan’s oldest film studio, Nikkatsu, Arrow Video assembles its first collection of titles reflecting the late 1950s inauguration of a star system contracted for their ‘Diamond Line.’ This trio of features reflects the rising popularity of extravagant genre narratives in the evolving system, and includes obscure titles from master auteurs such as Seijun Suzuki, Toshio Masuda, and Buichi Saito (early titles from Suzuki and Masuda were also part of a notable 2009 Eclipse series set, Nikkatsu Noir).

The pearl of the collection is Suzuki’s Voice without a Shadow, a rare gem from the master director’s early period. One of four films he made in 1958 (another being the early classic Underworld Beauty), it feels rather heavily modeled after various American film noir tropes, but in true Suzuki fashion, much more complicated. If “Beauty” felt like a generous Sam Fuller riff, then “Voice” seems a recalibration of something like Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). Asako (Yoko Minamida) is a transfixing switchboard operator who just so happens to speak to a killer when she dials the wrong number of a pawnshop. She becomes a star witness and brief media sensation in the ensuing investigation, but the killer is never apprehended. As time passes, Asako leaves her profession and marries Kotani (Toshio Takahara), a bit player who gets wrapped up with a mysterious group of men who work for a place called Tokyo Advertising Company. Kotani is forced to host a nightly game of mahjong to please his colleagues (which irritates the neighbors). But when Asako hears the voice of his boss, Hamazaki (Jo Shishido), she knows instantly he is the ‘voice without a shadow.’ Shortly after, Hamazaki is found murdered and Kotani is the main suspect, leading Asako to seek the help of handsome reporter Ishikawa (Hideaki Nitani).

Suzuki was famously fired from Nikkatsu following his 1967 classic Branded to Kill, when studio heads grew tired of his divorce from linear narrative. He’d survive a decade in television before eventually emerging with the batshit crazy Taisho Trilogy, but that’s another story. It’s bizarre seeing Suzuki so constrained knowing his predilection for excess, but one can see where the auteur attempted to inject his own stamp, such as moments where the visual perspective slowly begins to turn on its axis, as if the film is trying to making itself queasy during moments where events get tight for the wrongly persecuted Kotani. Jo Shishido, who was famously groomed to be a leading man for the studio, had undergone cheek augmentation the year prior, and he emerges as a rather sinister villain here. Suzuki injects a bit of dark comedy early on, such as making Asako, who has ‘exceptionally good ears,’ attempt to recognize the killer’s voice by having a group of usual suspects reenact dialogue.

Red Pier (1958)

Director Toshio Masuda would direct fifty-two titles for Nikkatsu in the ten year span from 1958 to 1968 before he moved on to big-budget productions and anime. With his films revered for their box office record, Masuda helped create the action film standard, and 1958’s Red Pier was a follow-up to the successful Rusty Knife, a film which also headlined Nikkatsu’s most famous star of the period, Yujiro Ishihara (Crazed Fruit), whose older brother Shinatro Ishihara wrote many of Masuda’s screenplays. This particular film is an adaptation of Julien Duvivier’s Pepe le Moko (1937).

Ishihara stars as “Jiro the Lefty,” who witnesses a man killed in a suspicious crane accident as soon as he sets foot on Kobe. The accident is actually the cover-up for a murder, but Detective Noro (Shiro Osaka) is soon tailing Jiro, who falls in love with the victim’s sister, Keiko (Mie Kitahara). But his pursuit of Keiko is complicated by his current girlfriend, the aggressive Mami (Sanae Nakahara) who has no intention of letting her man go, no matter the cost.

Although its narrative eventually feels a bit belabored, Red Pier has enough odd elements to keep it compelling, particularly Ishihara as Jiro, a troubled youth cum reluctant gangster of circumstance. More compelling is actress Nakahara playing Mami, who injects a much needed desperation into a tale filled with yakuza face-offs.

The Rambling Guitarist (1959)

The only title in color is this early title from Takeichi (Buichi) Sato, perhaps the least prolific director of the set, as far was what has been made available for US consumption. This item, in particular, feels akin to a Western influenced counter-culture exercise, the type of recycled narrative which was beginning to proliferate post WWII US cinema. Taki, a drifting musician (Akira Kobayashi), inadvertently becomes affiliated with the criminal underground when he rescues one of mob boss Akitsu’s (Nobuo Kaneko) men in a bar brawl. Offered a job, Taki swiftly declines, but becomes enamored with Akitsu’s beautiful daughter, Yuki (Ruriko Asaoko), a spoiled young woman who has no idea of her father’s criminal capabilities. Taki becomes a regular part of the gang, though an aggressive rival named George (Jo Shishido) arrives to complicate matters. But when Akitsu sends Taki in to bully his own sister, the young singer’s conscience begins to bother him.

Perhaps the least effective of the set due to its own rambling narrative, too many incomplete strands coalesce in odd ways, such as significant background details revealed nonchalantly for both Taki and Shoshido’s menacing George. The bizarre domestic dispute provides the clearest sense of dramatic tension, but even this feels blurred by a hackneyed romance and Taki’s murky motivations. On the plus side, there’s a high degree of unintentional comedy between Yuki and Taki. When questioned about his former lover, Yuki apologizes for causing him to remember a tragedy. “I don’t forget, so I don’t remember,” he explains. Several sequences later, he deftly extracts himself from a night of dancing by informing her “It’s past a lady’s bedtime.”

Disc Review:

Arrow Video’s Limited Edition (3000 copies) is a superb collection of obscure Nikkatsu titles, each with different narrative objectives for the studio’s increasing attention to youthful interests. These are newly transferred presentations, making their debut to English language audiences. Presented in 2.35:1 with uncompressed monaural audio, it’s another inspired set from the distributor. Original trailers for all three films, as well as a trailer preview for Diamond Guys Volume Two is included.

Jasper Sharp:
Critic and author Jasper Sharp looks at the careers of Diamond Guys Yujiro Ishihara and Hideaki Nitani in three exclusive segments for Arrow Video. Each segment (fifteen minutes for Ishihara, ten devoted to Nitani) finds Sharp discussing each star in specific context of the 1950s and the five major Japanese studios.

Final Thoughts:

Fans of the Japanese New Wave, and Seijun Suzuki in particular, should be enthused about this first entry in a continuing series of untapped titles from Japan’s oldest film studio.

Voice without a Shadow – ★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
Red Pier – ★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
The Rambling Guitarist – ★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Set Review: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆